


Three Words Are A Million [Revised]

by unpopularmyth (Chrysander)



Series: A Discourse for Lilies [9]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: M/M, Starvation, Total Depressive shut down, Twincest, death by being devoured, death by crushing, inability to cope with loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21667588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrysander/pseuds/unpopularmyth
Summary: The revised version of previous work.
Relationships: Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Series: A Discourse for Lilies [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1398070
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48
Collections: Spardacest Server Fics and Art





	Three Words Are A Million [Revised]

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [three words are a million](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19951129) by [unpopularmyth (Chrysander)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrysander/pseuds/unpopularmyth). 



_”Vergil!”_

That was what he’d heard, his brother calling for him moments before the pain had ripped through him. What exactly happened, he couldn’t recall. Blinking away the disorientation, he knew he must have struggled, there is an ache somewhere but for the life of him, he could not focus enough to find its source. Senses distorted, there is a ringing in his ear, his eyes are having trouble focusing on anything. Nothing is blurry per se, it was more like he could not register what was in front of him. There was a glow of light in his peripheral, he slowly moved his head towards its source.

Deja vu struck him as he stared at the gigantic creature, with a face glowing like an effervescent hole, a set of teeth surrounding the light in the center. Blood gushed, it was eating something. Vergil tried once again to blink away the disorientation, like a thick muck covering his cognition. The tentacles that made up its limbs let go of the carcass it was eating from. The heap fell to the ground harshly, kicking up sand and dust.

Vergil’s gaze didn’t leave the blood-soaked mound on the ground, though his eyes began to water inexplicably. His chest felt tight, though he could not place why. The blur of his watery eyes finally blinked away enough for him to realize he was being lifted. He turned his head up to the creature that had him, he knew what this thing was, something told him. Knew but his mind was blank, like a barren waste after a sandstorm. Scrubbed clean of coherency.

The light from its maw was brilliant and entrancing, blinding his eyes and a bliss pours through him. The bliss could not hide the pain that ripped through his chest as it’s maw dug harshly into his flesh. Ripping through the leather of his vest and coat, taking some skin with it. His head snapped back in a silent scream, vertigo hits him, he finds himself looking at the mound on the ground. Discarded. Bloody and broken. Something... nagged... at the corner of his mind over it...

It...

it...

_he...?_

Pain ripped through him again, along with it a rage that pierced through him. He clawed at the creature, spotting something shining in its neck, a long sleek O-Katana. It sang desperately to him. Yamato. He grabs her and slices downward, scoring through its throat. Finally, it released him.

He landed hard on his back, and twisted there on the ground, his hand grasping his chest, he could feel the ribs jostled. The chunks of flesh that had been ripped of, exposing the bone. The ground slick beneath him. Blood. His blood.

_Keep moving._  
  
_Get away!_

Screaming in his senses, he clung to the pain, the pain was grounding him. Piercing through the haze like the beam of a lighthouse in the fog. Forcing himself to his feet, he stumbled forward. His gaze once again settling on the discarded mound.

_Get him._

_Run!_

His legs woefully inadequate for the commands, they do their best to heed him. Nearly falling over the mound, he wraps his arms around him. He knows he’s speaking aloud, but it's so slurred he would forgive anyone for not understanding what he was trying to say. Even he couldn’t know what words he uttered.

That didn’t matter.

Forced to carry the mound, he hoists him over one shoulder the best he could, wrapping an arm around him. There’s blood everywhere. He is sure some of it is his. Only some of it...

_Keep moving!_

The ground thuds and shook with the tread of the creature behind him. He moved, his sluggish feet gaining traction once it wasn’t contesting with his balance on the bloodsoaked ground.

_Go faster!_

  
He was trying, but he knew it was gaining on him. Where he was running, he had no real clue, something just told him to go west. Was this west? Who cares, keep going! The ledge becomes clear as he approaches it, hesitating on its precipice.

_Go!_

Over it?

_YES!_

The next thing he knows, he’s stepping onto nothing, clutching his brother to him as they fall. The roar behind them turns his attention, the adrenaline sharpening his sight. Its tentacles reaching for them. They will be caught; fear shouts inside of him. He slashes blindly at it, slicing limbs off, blood gushes, the light of its maw blinds him again. He doesn’t know if he did any real damage to it, all he really could make out was the inhuman howl that echoed in his ears.

The air is rushing around them, how long have they been falling?  
  
The light around them is being swallowed as they descend.

Even with the numbness of his mind, his body feels it when he impacts the ground, he could hear the breaking of his skull against the stone. The sound of a splash. Two splashes.

It goes blissfully dark.

* * *

“You’re telling me you’ve been working no wage for the services you’ve rendered?” Vergil shot his brother an incredulous sidelong glance to Dante. “How have you managed so long being so incompetent brother?”

Dante meets him with a full forced grin, “What can I say? I get by on my good looks and irresistible charms,” Finishing off the retort with a wink. The ridiculousness of all of it earns a balked chuckle from Vergil.

Shaking his head, he shot his brother a glare, crossing his arms, “Then why did I ever bother paying you!?”

Dante held his hands up in a show of mock innocence, “Beats me, but it’s a good thing you did. Those toilets needed flushing.”

Ignoring the implications there, Vergil scoffs at Dante, “I should have paid you in marbles because you are CLEARLY lacking in them!” That earns a laugh from his brother.

Dante’s elation is palpable.

It’s nice.

* * *

Vergil’s body jerks a little like a nerve sparked to life. He opens his eyes slowly, staring at the reflective surface of the water half of his face is submerged in. One of his eyes gives no input, part of the half of his face that was in the water. He tries to move and finds he could not.  
  
Vision swimming, he could feel the tingling sensation of healing. After a little bit of time, he tries again, and this time he could roll onto his back. He stares up at the scant source of light high above them. It wasn’t too dark, just enough to envelope them in its eerie air.

The throb of his bones screamed at him when he tried to move to a sitting position and failing. What had happened?  
  
Why were they down here?  
  
Where was the smell of blood coming from?  
  
His gaze settles on his mangled arm, sweeping down the length of the broken limb. Spotting Yamato nearby. Half of her length submerged into the shallow waters. That certainly wasn’t good for any blade, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to move just yet.

Returning his gaze to the mangled arm, he grimaces as he lifts his good arm, gripping the mangled limb, he couldn’t have it healing like this. Re-breaking the limb at the first break, he gasps before moving to the second. At the third break, he hisses, turning to his other side so that there was no pressure on the mangled arm.

Still unable to sit up, he waits, realizing after a moment that what he was looking at was the back of his brother’s coat.

Dante...

* * *

It was a mistake to try to talk to Dante.

“Hey, I ain’t stupid, alright?” Dante growled back at him. He refused to look toward Dante, so Dante was forced to put himself in the physical trajectory of Vergil’s path.

Vergil stops in his tracks, setting his gaze square on his brother, cold and unfeeling. Close to violence, his thumb caressed the tsuba of the Yamato. Dante opened his arms in response, trying to look less threatening, it was such a human gesture. “I know you got the whole, cold and collected shtick going on, and that’s cool. You do you. But we came down here for a reason, yeah?”

No demon would spread themselves out in order to beseech another.

“To sever the Qliphoth and seal the portal,” Vergil responds quickly, factually, bored. Because what else could it be that they were down here? Dante was the one adamant about following him down here.

“No, no-no.” What was he on about, now? “I’m down here cause I care about you Verge, and someone's--”

Care about him? He never gave him a reason to.

“--Has to monitor me; yes you said that.” Vergil interrupted, his tone dry and tired of the rhetoric already.

Dante looked offended, of course, he would. His expression goes to his amicable neutrality, a facade he recognized in the Devil May Cry when he was only half of a man, “You know what, when you’re done being a sourpuss, we’ll talk about this.”

He wanted to smack that look off his brother’s face.

* * *

Staring at Dante’s back, the way his brother was so still, it sparked something in Vergil. It made his heart drum in his ears, it invited the cold of the water to seep into his bones.  
  
He hated it.

To quell the mild panic trying to sink its teeth into him, he dragged himself through the water, to his little brother, “Dante,” he murmurs softly. Sputtering into a coughing fit as the water he’s kicking up gets into his mouth and into his lungs. His chest aches with both the choking on water and the ache of the cold against his wounds. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he grasps his brother’s jacket. Steadying himself before pulling his brother to turn onto his back.

“...”

* * *

“You don’t truly care for the state of humanity as a whole.”

“Ha! Alright, Verge.” Dante doesn’t seem perturbed, just surprised. Though it really wasn’t an admission, it’s puzzling enough that Vergil turns towards him.

“Is it not the truth? Are your motivations not solely driven by familial propriety?” He asks, recalling his better half’s conversation with Morrison. The agent had made it clear to him that Dante was ‘picky’ with his jobs, and that sometimes he would outright refuse a job.

Any jobs that didn’t have to do with family business, Vergil assumes this of course. Extrapolates from what he could recall.

His brother always came when he called.

Dante just laughs again, an obviously dismissive sound, “Humans don’t need me going on crusades for them. I’ll give you that. But,” He squared his posture, spreading his arms, “You don’t actually hate humans like you pretend to, nor what they represent.”

“That being?”

“Compassion of the soul.”  
  
Vergil almost laughed at what he was trying to imply here, “The act of putting the woes of others before yourself, to act on sympathetic pities and to concern oneself for the sufferings and misfortunes of others.”

Dante crossed his arms, “Yeah, that.”

Vergil was not amused, this was not funny. Because he knew Dante didn’t truly think him compassionate. This was obviously just a ploy to get him riled up. He was mocking him, “Yes, Dante. Very funny. Amusing. You are a master of comedy.”

“I’m serious. Hear me out,” Dante stepped towards him, but he shook his head and turned away. Dante could be a real idiot sometimes. “You got it, you know.”

His brother’s misguided psychology was wearing thin on his patience. “Do I?” Vergil nearly snapped back, turning back towards his brother with his arms crossed.

“You do, you pretend you don’t, but the truth is you just keep it close to your chest.” If he was being sincere, what was with the smug look on his face?

Vergil wonders if Dante is referring to his human half’s actions during the evacuation of Redgrave. If so, that wasn’t him. Not really. Not in any way that was important. Besides that, his motivations were...

“You like to keep it close to your heart.” Oh, now he was just being a sentimental fool.

Rolling his eyes, he looked away.  
  
“That’s where I come in,” Dante winked at him when Vergil looked back.

Did...

Did he know the truth behind Temen-ni-gru and his actions back then?  
  
Did he know that it was all to protect him?

No... No, he couldn’t have known. Vergil never did say, and he never would.

He had failed anyway, so it didn’t matter.

* * *

When he was able to sit up finally, he did so, staring down at the sight in his arms. The memories came rushing back. The eldritch horror that had lied in wait like a stonefish in the sand, its demonic aura so small neither of them could pinpoint that itch in the back of their senses. It had attacked them-- him. He’d fought against it, could have killed it, until he saw the light coming from its mouth.  
  
Not many demons employed such powerful mind-altering spells.

On seeing the lights, the unprepared exposure, his conscious mind had blinked out. Lost in a sea of bright light. He remembers falling limp, useless. Dante shouted for him, saved him, fought for him. Until he too, became exposed to the lights.

Vergil remembered Dante’s sword falling from his hands, not even dispersing into the aether, just laying there. Discarded. He watched as his brother’s chest was broke open, his heart was eaten while it was still beating. A fate Vergil nearly shared.

Even though it all happened in his peripherals. He remembers.

He can’t unsee it.

* * *

“Hey, do you remember mom’s rhubarb and strawberry pie?” Dante kept asking these mundane questions, it would get annoying if not for the mental hoops he had to take to answer some of them. Some truly took a great deal of thinking to dredge up the memory.

“I do not,” This time, no luck.

“Aw, shucks. I’ll get a recipe sometime. Won’t be the same, but I make a mean pie crust,” Dante smiles casually, to him the time here in the hell is a cakewalk. Almost boring.

“I can’t wait,” Vergil answer’s dryly, but the words were sincere, regardless of his inflection.

“Your gonna love it,” He winks.

A small smile twitched at the corner of his lips but it was gone just as quick as it came. He hoped to like the pie.

Dante’s expression suddenly contorts into a thinking expression. Uh oh. “When was the last time you had anything to really eat? Did you eat as V?”

Thinking about that for a moment, he shrugs, “I had my ways.” Keeping the statement cryptic as possible, Dante didn’t need to know the details. Though Vergil did recall mugging a pair of gentlemen for a burger. He remembered how sloppy and greasy it was.

Dante gave him a skeptical look, “So, no real meals huh?”

“Your point?” He was starting to get annoyed. Hoping that Dante would not ask about his time as the Angelo; he’d have no answers for that anyway. Even if he did remember a few things.

“Oh, nothing,” In an innocently sing-song manner, his brother’s sly grin widening, “When we get topside, I’m gonna take you one of my favorite spots. My treat.”

“No thanks,” He responded dryly, giving an ‘oof’ when Dante slapped his back, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

“Trust me, it's gonna be great,” Dante winks at him again, “Might even make a foodie out of ya.”

Vergil just scoffs and rolls his eyes, but something about Dante’s mood is infectious. Dare he say, he might be excited by the prospect of Dante treating him.

“... What’s a foodie?”  
  
Dante didn’t answer, he just chuckled.

* * *

Staring at the gaping hole in Dante’s chest is too much, so Vergil peels off his own coat and drapes it over his brother like a blanket. That was when he realizes that Dante’s eyes are still open, vacant. A sound chokes out of him, he bites down on it harsh enough that his teeth cut into the inside of his cheek.

His breathing starts coming heavy, harsh, as he could barely take them. Reaching out, he hesitates before gently dragging his fingers down his brother’s eyelids. Closing the blue eyes from the world. Trailing his hand to the rest on the collar bone, he could almost tell himself that Dante was just sleeping, he was so peaceful.

No that wasn’t right.

Dante just... wasn’t.

He was gone.

Not even the hard lines of age and barely veiled angst marred his face anymore. The expression was so vacant, so alien to Dante that it ripped a hole into Vergil’s own heart. Proverbially.

Droplets hit the top of his hand and his brother’s face. For once he didn’t even try to stop them. Part of him knew, when his mind was recovering from the scrubbing, what had happened. He’d almost cried then, hadn’t he?

“You said... you said you’d take me out,” His mind started to swim, his body shaking.

“You said you would ... make a pie,” voice cracking then, he gathered his brother into his arms, leaning into him.

“This isn’t happening,” He wished, pressing his brother’s face into his neck.

He wanted to tell himself it would fine, he’d be okay. But he couldn’t lie that blatantly, not even to himself.  
  
“Dante,” He whispered, pushing some of his hair from his face, “Please...”

Gritting his teeth, he pressed his forehead to Dante’s, gasping as he rocked into him. Vergil finally broke. The tears would not stop.

“It shouldn’t have been you,” he croaked, remembering Dante’s desperate cry for him. Rocking into him harder, Vergil could not hold back the cry tearing out of him in his anguish, long and desperate.

This was his fault. “Should have been me.” His voice a strangled whisper.

Stroking his brother’s face, his hair, clutching him desperately as he begged.

Oh did he beg.

He begged for forgiveness.

He begged to some unknown god that this wasn’t real.

He begged for hours.

For days.

Until he had no more tears.

Until he had no voice.

* * *

Vergil had eyed the hot-spring they were passing by, but as much as he wanted to be clean, they could not linger in a place for that lo-- “What are you doing?” He asks his brother who had walked up to the hot-spring and started stripping.

“What’s it look like?” Dante didn’t turn to him as he deposited his coat onto the ground unceremoniously. “It’s a hot-spring, right?”

Watching his brother kick his boots off before he began his approach, “Sulfuric Hot-springs.” He said, correcting Dante. The smell wasn’t so bad though, a little pungent but not unpleasant, not like the gore they were covered in.

Dante turned toward him, slipping his pants off, “Your point?”  
  
Vergil didn’t have a point, he was just... whatever. With a sigh, he turned to scan the plains around them. There wasn’t any activity, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be harassed. “Dante, we shouldn’t carelessly be in the open like this.”

He turned back towards Dante only for his brother’s underwear to smack him in the face, audible “Bitch get in here,” from his brother.  
  
With a growl, he threw the garment to the ground, “What!” Almost hissing at his brother, teeth bared. As soon as the garment was out of the way Vergil could see the full brunt of his brother’s naked body in the water.  
  
Dante chuckled up at him, “Come on, Verge. While the water’s hot.”  
  
That made no sense, “The water will always be hot, Dante.” If his brother was trying to be funny, he’d have to try harder.  
  
Instead, Dante swam to the edge and draped himself over the ledge, the expression on his face was a beseeching one, and at the same time expectant. It reminded him of when they were children when Dante would wait expectantly with training swords in hand.

It couldn’t really be described as ‘puppy eyes’ because his brother wasn’t a damn puppy. But... it could come close, truly.

With a heavy sigh, Vergil slipped his jacket off, glancing around them as he stripped. Dante kicked off the side to allow him entry, a knowing grin on his face, letting out a cat-call whistle when Vergil finally slipped the last article of clothing off. His pants. “Totally forgot you go commando.”

To Vergil just shot him back a contemptible glare before slipping into the hot water.  
  
Another heavy sigh escapes him when the heat of the water soaks into his tired bones and tense muscles.  
  
Okay, this was fantastic.

* * *

When he was finally spent Vergil stayed still, his face pressed into his brother’s hair. He knew not how long he’d been like that, with his brother’s body stiffening in his arms. His thumb stroking gently along the stubble of his brother’s jawline.

Regret pulsed through him. Anguish and agony. Echoing the rhythm of his aching heart.

Yamato was nearby, he could feel her hum. He should grab her... he should keep moving. Dante would want him to.

If Dante could live countless years without him, Vergil could manage the same, can’t he? They were, after all... twins. Equal in might and conviction. So if Dante can move...

Knowing his voice was still ravaged, instead of speaking aloud, he mouths the word’s ‘I’m sorry’ into his brother’s cold skin.

He doesn’t.

He can’t.

* * *

“See, this isn’t so bad,” Dante remarks as he stretched out into the hot-spring. Languishing in the hot water like an otter or some other comically lazy water-loving rodent.

Vergil gives a snort at the mental image, dipping into the hot water to wet his face and hair. Emerging again, he scrubbed his hands and face free from the gore. Once his body was rather clean, he climbed out of the spring, pulling the dirty clothes to the nearby spring adjacent to the one they’d been washing in. It was a chance he couldn’t pass up, to clean their things free from the gore and dirt. By the time Dante would be done being lazy in the water they should be somewhat dry.

“Verge?” Dante swam to the edge, his brows knitting together as he watched Vergil clean his jacket, “Seriously? Your doing chores?”

“Just taking advantage of the commodity,” He deflects, once he had enough of the gore scrubbed from Dante’s jacket he dipped his brother’s shirt and jeans into the water.

“Your wasting time doing laundry when you should be in here,” Dante slapped the top of the steaming water.

“I bathed,” Again, he deflected, once the shirt was relatively cleaned he set that aside on the rocks with the jacket. The jeans were easier, it was a rougher cloth so scrubbing it together on itself was a simple task.

He felt a splash of hot water hit his back, making him jump and hiss. Shooting a glare at Dante, Vergil started wringing out the jeans, “Quit being childish.”

“No,” Dante was leaning on the side of the spring, his expression serious, one might even say dour. “Get in here.”

Vergil shook his head, placing his brother’s last article of clothing, his underwear in the water. A grin touched his face after a mischevious thought, and he glanced behind him to see Dante staring at him with a dejected look on his face, “Oh quit your pouting.” Vergil threw the wet underwear at Dante and it made a thick, wet thud as it collided with his face.

Dante stayed froze there for a comical length of time as if being hit by the wet cloth had turned him to stone. Vergil guffawed at his brother, covering his mouth to try to hide his face. This, however, spurred Dante to action. Nearly leaping from the spring, he managed to grab onto Vergil’s ankle and yank him.

With a yelp Vergil kicked back, but alas he was yanked right into the water.

* * *

There is a smell that would attract carrion, dried blood, and souring flesh. He’ll address it if any arrive.

How long has it been?

He had no idea.

Pain has joined the cocktail of emotions drowning him, he knows it is not from injury. His bones and flesh healed long ago. Perhaps it was the hole in his chest, that proverbial one, getting bigger.

* * *

Dante, who won the wrestle, pinned him down in the shallows spring. Grinning like an idiot, but Vergil was pissed, so he avoided Dante’s gaze. “Aw, don’t be like that, Verge.”  
  
The tone was foreign enough that he turns his attention back towards Dante, for a heartbeat they are frozen like that, staring at each other. When the heartbeat passes, their lips crash together in a soul soaring kiss.

Who had initiated it? Neither of them knew. Dante is just as surprised by it as Vergil when the kiss breaks. His heart is pounding in his ears, for a moment he wonders if Dante will backpedal, take it back, disengage. He wouldn’t blame him if he did. Dante lived a -- Dante does the opposite of running away and takes Vergil’s lips again, of course, he does. How could Vergil have thought his brother would charge anywhere but forward?

Like in all things their lips fight for dominance. Unexpectedly, after a few moments of the bruising kiss, they both moan in tandem. Again this breaks the kiss as if each is equally surprised that the other is doing this, or allowing this. Whatever.

Tired of the game, Vergil grabs Dante’s face and devours his brother’s lips like he was a man desperate for water after years of drought.

* * *

He knows what the pain is now, it’s starvation. Ironic really, but then he’s neither eaten nor absorbed vitality, so is he really that surprised?

If he stays any longer, he’ll be too weak to move. He knows this. He should move.

He doesn’t.

The pangs of pain are as regular as his heartbeat. He wonders if he could die like this.

Part of him hopes he could.

* * *

He doesn’t like giving up control.

He’d done so once, willingly, to a man who abused his yearning and invaded his space. Unwelcome, but at least Arkham had the mercy of allowing him pleasure, even if it had ultimately been just a tool to manipulate Vergil by. In another time control was ripped from him by a demon who did not allow him pleasure, who showed him nothing but cruelty, a time he could not truly recall anymore.

But Dante was neither of these men. Dante was a good lover. He gave up control to Dante.

For Dante.

Who showed him how exhilarating sex could be when it was a steady give and take. An equal exchange of pleasure between them that excites him to a frightening degree. Anxiety and fear nearly ruined it all, “Vergil?”  
  
Dante stops fingering him when he could not choke it back down in time. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t stop shaking, “Hey, you alright?”

Vergil doesn’t have the answer to that. So he just avoids Dante’s gaze.

“Shit, I’m...”

No...

“I’m sorry, Vergil.” When Dante pulls away, his chest feels like a blow gashed it open. Before his brother could pull away completely, he grasps his wrist.

Dante stills, waiting for whatever Vergil had to say, but the words don’t come. It was like they were swallowed whenever he thought of them. How could he explain to Dante that the panic was from something he couldn’t even rightly remember anymore? The worst of the memories were gone, leaving only vague notions of what had taken place. There wasn’t any good way to explain it. Nothing that would be a satisfactory answer.

Vergil shut his eyes and lets go of Dante, letting his brother make the choice. Though he was sure his brother would take the panic attack as a sign that he didn’t want Dante, it couldn’t be further from the truth. He loathed it and this show of vulnerability with it.

Pathetic.

A gasp escapes him when he feels Dante’s hand cupping his face, he opens his silver eyes to meet his brother’s blue ones. Dante doesn’t ask, doesn’t question him, instead he kisses his eyelids, his cheeks, his neck, his lips. Caressing his cheek, sliding his hand down his back along his spine.

Slow, gentle, tender.

It soothes the anxiety, calms the panic, feeding his yearning until he is needing again. “I’m alright now,” he murmurs, his fingers curling into Dante’s hair.  
  
“Yeah?” Dante asks, double-checking. Vergil nodded. “Cause we don’t have to do this if--,” A finger to his lips shuts him up, Vergil presses his forehead against Dante’s, nodding to Dante before kissing him.

He trusts Dante.

He wants this.

He wants his brother to wash away the bad.

Pave a way for something good for fucking once.

It takes a little to get Dante comfortable again, to pick up where they left off. Once they hit a tempo of lust, with his little brother balls deep in him, they ride euphoria together.

Dante was a good lover.

* * *

In the quiet, dimly lit ravine, he did not notice the soft shifting of the water. Even the disturbances on the surface that he did hear felt distant like they weren’t really there. This was as fitting of a grave as any, truly. A nice quiet place, away from the horrors of the demon world.

It wasn’t until the felt his brother’s body shift that he had noticed anything amiss. The shock woke him from the stupor. Disrupting the incoherence brought on my such long stretches of stillness, cutting through the now-familiar pain of starvation and setting alight the nerves of his sleep-deprived mind.

When he’s coherent enough to realize that there are long tendrils of bio-luminescent roots coiling around them, he doesn’t move. His mind taking long, considerate efforts to figure out what was happening. Before he could react, the roots have yanked Dante from him, and he gasps in desperation, his voice cracking from disuse as he speaks. “No!”  
  
Vergil’s legs are so stiff they crack and creak when he struggles to his feet, and he nearly falls when he hurries after the roots.

* * *

They were lazying about in the shallows of the spring, Vergil’s head was resting back, one arm and the lower part of one of his legs draped in the warmth of the water. Dante was wrapped around his belly like a kitten cuddling for warmth, the roughness of his stubble tickled when he spoke.  
  
“So what are planning when we get topside?”

The question stills Vergil for a moment, there was so much to consider what the question could be referring to. “About Nero?” It was the most obvious one to bring up, the elephant in the room, so to speak. Vergil gives a non-committal shrug. It wasn’t an answer, but it wasn’t really omission either.

Dante doesn’t comment on his lackluster response, and they settled into a comfortable silence until his brother spoke again, “You gonna move into the shop?” The question is charged with such an energy that Vergil looks at Dante, who is avoiding his gaze, circling his fingertips into Vergil’s sternum. He realizes that the question is less simple than it sounds. That it is more than just an invitation to be a roommate. To be partners, at work... possibly more.  
  
Definitely more.  
  
The unspoken weight of the invitation bears down onto Vergil, and he’s left wondering if it is even a good idea. If he accepts now, would their current amicability and understanding stand the test of time? Could he be comfortable enough with Dante to share his space or vis verse? Did he even really belong in Dante’s world, after all, he had done? Unconsciously he tenses at these thoughts. Knowing no answers, save for the last one. No. He didn’t belong, he knew. His transgressions, the proverbial distance between their lives was too great. Too much time between their childhood and now. Too many mistakes.  
  
Too many sins.

Still... He says what he thinks Dante needs to hear. “If this invitation is so you have someone to clean up after you, I will string you up by the neck,” His tone teasing, even if he was deflecting the question he’s glad when it earns a laugh from his brother, who lifts his head and rests his chin on his chest to look at Vergil.

“Come on, Verge. We’d be a powerhouse demon-hunting duo,” Dante pleaded, joining in on the banter, “Besides, I need a dishwasher.

“What dishes? The mountains of pizza boxes?” Giving a snort, “Besides, if we did that, you’d run out of work too quickly. We’d be too efficient,” Vergil teased back, “You might need to fill your ranks with those unsavory chivalrous crusades just to make ends meet.”

“Agh! No. Okay. No dynamic duo, then,” Dante laughed, settling his head back down against Vergil’s abdomen. A heaviness settled in Dante, causing too many feelings to twist and knot up in Vergil.

“Perhaps... On occasion I could join you when you're working,” His voice just above a whisper, though he knows Dante could hear him, “Being cooped up in the shop all day could get dreary.” Vergil feels Dante grin against his skin, and tighten his arms around him. The rawness made Vergil feel light, even floaty.

Perhaps, he reconsiders...

Maybe a domestic life with Dante wouldn’t be so bad.

* * *

The depth of the water is thigh-high now, Vergil struggled through it, chasing the vines that stole his brother. His breath, the creaks of the vines, the sloshing of the water were the only sounds. By the time he reached the demon tree, the water was past waist height. Forcing himself up the giant roots, onto the scant bit of landmass at its base, he is too late. The tree was opened up, like a maw of a beast, his brother’s body was slowly pulled into its trunk.

Only by the grace of this slowness does Vergil even make it up to the trunk. Desperately reaching into the giant trunks maw, he grasps his brother’s lifeless body, pulling vines and snapping tendrils as he tries to free Dante from the Demon Tree’s clutches. The tree shudders and snaps out a vine at him, throwing him back into the water. Standing, he hurries back to the trunk, only to come up short and fall forward into the water again. His foot is caught in the roots.

There’s no time to wonder if this was by accident or design, and he struggles against the roots to free himself. Lungs burning as he fumbles with the straps until he’s able to slip his foot out. Gasping when he breaches the surface, he pulls himself back onto the roots. No time for reprieve, he reaches the maw as its closing. “Don’t!” He rasped, managing to throw his arm into its confines, up to his shoulder. His fingertips graze his brother’s arm, gripping the wrist. Vergil looks into the strange glowing demon tree to see his brother so thoroughly entangled in its confines, Dante’s head hanging limp, his hair hiding his features.

“Don’t,” Fresh tears falling. As if begging a demon tree would give him his brother back.

“Please don’t.”

* * *

“I love you,” Dante says once again. This is the fortieth time he’s said it since they started their courtship.

It hits him like a freight train each time. Galvanizes his soul and gouges his heart open anew. It is a pleasant kind of hurt. An oxymoron that he’d trade the world for.

This is the fortieth time Vergil cannot bring himself to respond.

* * *

Vergil hisses against the pain as the barbs of the vines wrapping around him rend his flesh like teeth. He stays flush with the trunk long enough that it begins to open. With heavy relief he reaches Dante, yet still he cannot free either of them from the vines. The vines snake up his arms, around his thigh. He feels Yamato calling out to him from where he had left her. Vergil grits his teeth from the pain, ignoring her call. Even if he managed to yank himself free if he moved he’d lose Dante forever. Just a bit of time, and he could pull them free of this fucking tree.

He could bring Dante home.

Howling in frustration, and though his form shifted to his devil shape, it does little. Each time he tears through a bunch of vines, more take their place. Beating his wings, he plants his foot and pulls with all of his might, rending more flesh. Spilling more blood. He only stops when Dante’s jacket begins to tear, fearing to rip his brother apart. Exhaustion tears his demon flesh away, and he is human again.  
  
Tired, weak, useless.

Gasping, he calls out to no one that could hear, “I didn’t even... I didn’t say it.”

* * *

Sensing his anxiety, Dante gripped his shoulder, leaning in to kiss along the side of his neck. “You don’t have to say it, alright?” He whispers, his voice was so soft, so longing.

It made Vergil’s heart ache.

* * *

More vines have caught him around the torso, and he lets out a scream when they tighten, breaking his bones in the process. That was it. That was all he had. He cannot free them. Vergil hung his head, grimacing against the pain. It was only then that he realizes it's pulling him into its confines as well. The trunk closes around them.

The window for escape is gone.

* * *

“You know why I chose to join you, don’t you?” This again? Vergil raised a brow at his brother, that ache starting in his chest again. Just as he was about to answer with the same dryness as before, Dante interrupts him. “Its because I can’t go through that again. I couldn’t let you come down here alone, not after last time.”

Vergil didn’t want to have this conversation. “Dante,” He began, but his brother’s hand waved him off.

“But its deeper than that. I missed ya, yeah. I was worried, but mostly?” Dante looked at him with that raw, open love on his expression. It made Vergil’s heart throb like a drum in his ears, made his stomach do flips, everything tingles and he doesn't know if he's hot or cold anymore. For the first time in his life, his palms are sweating. He’s bad at this, he knows. He’d never been good with emotions. Vergil feels too deeply, and even his walls do nothing for him now.

“It’s cause I wanted us to be closer,” Dante’s love radiates warmth from him that is too intense. “Yeah, its been years, but screw it. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I don’t want that for you either.”

Like standing next to the sun.

“We were inseparable, once. Nothing could stand in our way, or tear us apart.” Unlike the sun, however, he didn’t share this warmth with just anybody. “I want that again.”

If only Vergil was worthy of that warmth.

“Understand? You're stuck with me for the rest of your life,” Dante patted his own chest to emphasize his declaration, “Besides, we got a lot of lost time to make up for.”

Vergil’s brows softened, it was the softest expression he’d ever given anyone. It was no question how Dante can draw such emotions from him. The truth was, he wanted all of that too. Even if he wasn’t worthy of Dante, even if he wasn’t ready to say it, he wanted to. Drawing up his courage, “Dante, I lov--”  
  
The sudden shock and fear that sprung on Dante’s face cause Vergil to tense.

_“VERGIL!”_

* * *

Blood is pouring from his lips with the breaking of his ribcage, every breath is a ragged, painful struggle and he’s sure one of his lungs has collapsed. He won’t be conscious for much longer. Lifting his head, his gaze settles on Dante’s face, they are so close, yet he can’t move to touch him anymore. So it feels like they are miles apart. Dante’s face is paler than he’s ever seen it, but it doesn’t deter his beauty.

“I love you, Dante.” He murmurs between the coughs of blood and hisses of pain. “Always have. I ... I wish...” What could he possibly ask have asked for? On death's door as he was, “... Time. Just a bit more time. I could have told you... Just ... a moment more.” He tells himself. He has no more energy for doubt, no more time for reflection.

“I love you,” He whispers as the tears come again.

“I love you,” Like a mantra.

He repeats it.

Till he could no more.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked the revision, feel free to consider leaving a kudo's or a comment (even if it's just emojis).


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